Jon Cleary - High Road to China

‘Losers in our wars lose everything,’ he said. ‘We are not so foolish as to expect mercy.’

‘You sound as if you have never been on the losing side,’ said O’Malley.

Sun smiled, and seemed annoyingly smug to the others. ‘My master is a very able general. Not stupid.’

‘He is a swine.’ Weyman abruptly looked less amiable.

Kern, sitting very still, looked in turn at each of his guests. He still did not understand the presence of the Chinese, but it was against his code of manners to ask. The atmosphere had changed; but he was curious rather than annoyed. He had been bored ever since coming here to the Bodensee six months ago and he welcomed anything that would spark a little electricity in his dull existence. Any war was welcome, even one at the dinner table.

‘For wanting to be master in his own province?’ said Sun Nan, looking sidelong at Weyman as if doing him a favour by answering him at all. ‘You foreigners have no right to be in China.’

‘We have the rights of trade.’ Weyman was flushed; it went against his grain even to argue with a Chink. ‘There are treaties.’

‘They mean nothing. You Europeans invented them to cover up your lies and greed.’ Sun Nan waved a hand of dismissal; then turned to Kern. ‘I am sorry to be in an argument in your house, Baron. But the bad manners are not mine. Forgive me, I shall retire.’

He bowed his head and stood up. But as he pushed back his chair, Weyman grabbed his arm. Ordinarily, despite his low boiling point and his consuming prejudices, he might have contained his temper at a stranger’s table: he was not without social graces. It was ironic that it was German wine that made him lose control of himself.

‘I’m not taking that from any damned Chink!’

‘Getyourhandsoffme!’ The hiss in Sun’s voice ran all the words together; his mouth ached with the awkwardness of his teeth. He said something in Chinese, glaring down at Weyman.

‘Who the hell do you think you are!’

His hand still grabbing Sun’s arm, Weyman pushed back his own chair and stood up. O’Malley, sitting on the other side of the table, saw Sun’s left hand go to his pocket, guessed at once what was going to happen but was too slow to act. The knife came out of Sun’s pocket and slashed at Weyman’s hand; the latter cursed, let go Sun’s arm and swung his other fist. But the knife flashed again and Weyman flopped back in his chair, holding the inside of his right elbow with his bloodied left hand. He drew his hand away and looked in amazement at the blood pumping out of the rip in the sleeve of his jacket. He tried to move his arm, failed, then suddenly fell off the chair in a dead faint.

Kern and O’Malley were already on their feet. Sun Nan, still holding the knife out in front of him, backed off. He was working his jaw and his mouth, still battling with his dental plate, but he looked neither afraid nor apologetic for what he had done.

O’Malley knelt down beside Weyman, wrenched off the bloodstained jacket and wrapped a napkin round the punctured artery. ‘Get a doctor!’

‘I shall get the police, too.’ Kern made for the door.

‘No!’ Eve stopped him. Her mind was a confusion of shock and anger, but at once she saw the danger of further delay if the police were called in. ‘Not the police – please! I’ll explain later. Just get a doctor. Please! ’

Kern looked at them all again, then he went out of the room.

Sun Nan moved round to the other side of the table, picked up a napkin and wiped his knife. He put it back in his pocket, did up the buttons of the jacket, bowed his head to Eve. ‘I am not used to being treated like that, Miss Tozer.’

‘Not even by your master?’ She was rigid with anger at him.

‘No white man is my master. Or mistress. You had better remember that, Miss Tozer.’

He left the room, turning his back on them and moving unhurriedly as if he knew neither Eve nor O’Malley would dare to touch him.

‘The bastard!’ said O’Malley.

Weyman stirred, opened his eyes and tried to sit up. But O’Malley pushed him back, while Eve found a cushion and put it under his head. She wrapped another napkin round his wounded left hand. Weyman looked at his right arm, propped up on O’Malley’s knee, and shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe what had happened to him.

‘I could kill him.’

‘I’d stop you first,’ said O’Malley. ‘You heard what Miss Tozer said this morning. She needs him more than us. And he knows it.’

Weyman looked at both of them, then at his arm. ‘How bad is it?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not good, that’s about all I can say.’

Kern came back. ‘The doctor will be here in ten minutes. Where is Herr Sun?’

‘Gone up to his room,’ said Eve. ‘He won’t run away.’

‘Perhaps you would do me the favour of explaining all this?’ Kern was coldly polite.

Eve hesitated, then told Kern everything. He listened without any expression on his face. When she had finished he looked down at Weyman. ‘Herr Weyman is not going to be able to fly tomorrow.’

George Weyman was stubborn, but not stupid: at least not about practical matters. ‘I couldn’t handle a machine, not the way my arm feels now.’

‘We’ll have to fly on tomorrow,’ Eve said. ‘We can’t be delayed. Can we leave Mr Weyman and his machine here with you?’

‘There is no alternative,’ said Kern. ‘But you still have to have your other aeroplanes released by Herr Bultmann.’

‘Can’t you help us there?’ Eve pleaded. ‘You can see how much even a day’s delay may mean to us.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime we should get Herr Weyman up to his room.’

‘What do we tell the doctor?’ O’Malley asked.

‘That it was an accident,’ said Kern. ‘This man was my uncle’s doctor for years. He won’t ask awkward questions.’

The doctor didn’t. Old, thin, looking like his own most regular patient, he came, fixed up Weyman’s arm, ordered him to rest. ‘You have damaged the tendon, too. It may be a long time before your arm is perfectly well again.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Weyman, irritated by the doctor’s inability to speak English. Kern told him and he shook his head in angry disappointment. ‘When you get to China, Miss Tozer, throw that swine out of your machine, will you? From a great height.’

Eve smiled, though it was an effort. ‘Just get well, Mr Weyman. Go back to England. You’ll be paid in full.’ Then she turned away, put a hand to her forehead. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them as she felt herself sway. ‘I’m tired. I’ll go to bed, if you’ll excuse me, Baron.’

Kern took her to the door of her room, kissed her hand. ‘We’ll solve your problem, Fräulein Tozer. Just get a good night’s sleep.’

‘My problem isn’t here, Baron. It is in China.’

She closed the bedroom door, undressed, got into the big four-poster bed. She stared out through the open window, saw a star fall across the purple-black sky. She believed in omens, but, exhausted emotionally and mentally, couldn’t remember what a falling star meant. But it reminded her of the flash on Sun Nan’s knife as he had plunged it into George Weyman’s arm. That had been some sort of omen, she knew; and cried for her father, the prisoner in a land of superstitions. She wondered if her father, staring out of his window wherever he was held, had seen the same star fall. Then remembered that it would be already dawn in China, the beginning of another precious day to be marked off by the man who held her father captive.

2

In the morning, at breakfast, Kern said, ‘Would you allow me to take Herr Weyman’s place?’